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Fans would rather engage with brands on Facebook than Twitter, says study

When we spoke to Jan Rezab, the founder of social media analytics company Socialbakers, one of the main topics he discussed was how the site is able to deliver data on engagement rates on social networking sites.

At the time, we wrote:

Rezab says a key element of Socialbakers is its engagement ratings. Instead of defining success by simple measurements of popularity like follower counts, Socialbakers tries to measure engagement with companies’ social media pages. This provides a more useful picture of how well a company’s social media marketing strategy is working, because “what is important is the quality of the fans and how they engage with your page.”

Socialbakers has just shared some interesting data that gives insight into which brands are successfully engaging users on Facebook, and which are finding more luck on Twitter.

Over all, it’s not surprising to find that Facebook is a far more suitable tool to use when trying to engage fans.

Socialbakers takes a look at some of the top brands on Facebook – Coca Cola, Starbucks, Red Bull, Oreo, Converse, PlayStation, Skittles, iTunes, Pringles and McDonald’s – and compares its presence on the social network to its presence on Twitter, over the past month.

In the post, Socialbakers explains the difference between the relationship that brands cultivate on Facebook and Twitter:

“Facebook engages people in a conversation and a dialogue providing its fans with a feeling of exclusivity. They can access all the brand’s interesting content in pictures, albums, links, status updates and more. This network is great for companies that mainly want to build a relationship with their Fans and share emotions that they want their brand to convey.”

In contrast, Twitter has more limitations:

Twitter on the other hand is limited by 140 characters but at the same time its content reaches more people (Facebook has some content dedicated only to Fans who click on the Like button)and can be posted more often. It´s great for brands that have the need for live streaming, blogging and promoting ideas.

Studying the top 10 brands, six of them are able to better engage their fans on Facebook, two are more successful on Twitter, and the remaining two enjoy similar results on both social networks.

Starbucks, Redbull, Converse, Playstation, iTunes and McDonald’s enjoy a higher average engagement rate on Facebook rather than Twitter.

On the other hand, Oreo and Skittles enjoy a higher average engagement rate on Twitter. As explained in the post, the reason behind this comes down to specific social media campaigns.

In the case of Oreo for example:

Oreo cookies are celebrating their 100th Bithday and they are asking their fans to share their Oreo moments and Oreo rituals on Twitter. They are asking for the same engagement on Facebook but perhaps Twitter is more spontaneous and fun for this kind of communication.

For the remaining two brands, Coca Cola and Pringles, the engagement rates on Facebook and Twitter are identical. However, both brands have relatively low engagement rates to begin with, so it may have more to do with their overall approach, rather than the platforms themselves.

While Facebook does give brands more tools to engage users, it’s worth bearing in mind that Twitter is still in the process of fine tuning its platform. Facebook makes it easy to connect with fans, but Twitter encourages creativity and a little bit of thinking outside of the box.

Lesotho-born and raised, Nancy Messieh, The Next Web's Middle East Editor, is an Egyptian writer and photographer based in Cairo, Egypt. Follow her on Twitter, her site or Google+ or get in touch at nancy@thenextweb.com